How Democrats Reclaim Patriotism (ft. Rep. Jason Crow)

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Welcome to Raise You Moderates.

I'm Jessica Tarlove.

I'm joined today by Representative Jason Crowe, Congressman from Colorado.

He's been in Congress since 2019 and serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

He's also a decorated Army veteran, having served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And he's the perfect person to talk with here on this 4th of July.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining me.

Jessica, thank you.

Great.

There are a lot of places to start.

I want to start with birthright citizenship.

So last week, the Supreme Court issued a ruling.

involving Trump's executive order attempting to repeal birthright citizenship.

The court didn't rule whether it was or wasn't constitutional.

What did you make of the ruling and the conversation around whether birthright citizenship is part of the American experiment?

Right.

A, it's not a ruling on the substance of birthright citizenship.

What it appears to be is a ruling on the ability of one district court, and there's actually 94 districts in the United States, but one of those individual district courts to issue a nationwide injunction on this issue that would apply to the 93 others.

So essentially, it's limiting district court jurisdiction, but fell short of actually ruling on the issue itself.

Ultimately, there will need to be a Supreme Court ruling on this issue of birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in our Constitution.

Does it surprise you that the Trump administration is going after birthright citizenship?

No, it doesn't.

And it shouldn't surprise anybody because they've said this for a very long time.

It's been in their plans.

And listen, Stephen Miller is kind of the wizard behind the curtain here for Trump on issues of immigration.

He has said for a long time what he wants to do, right?

He doesn't believe in immigration.

He doesn't believe we should be a nation of immigrants and doesn't believe in our history and heritage of immigration.

And it doesn't really matter who you are or what you look like.

He just doesn't believe in it.

And he also doesn't believe in birthright citizenship.

So so long as he continues to call the shots and issue policy, I think we will continue to see pretty terrible things like this coming out of the White House.

Yeah, I mean, obviously it's linked to the immigration question.

And I'm curious to get your thoughts on this because it's something that I struggle with.

Like as a Democrat who has endeavored to accept the November results and understand how badly the Democrats ceded the immigration issue to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, you know, obviously an unacceptable amount of people coming across the border in the first three years of the Biden administration.

I get it.

And I can understand why people were feeling connected to Trump's message.

But as they see his immigration policy get implemented, they don't like it.

We're seeing our highest numbers ever.

The new Quinnipiak poll showing 64% favor a pathway to citizenship.

It was 55% just like a year ago.

So obviously things are changing rapidly.

What do you make of the current, I guess, status of the immigration debate?

And what do you think Democrats are offering that's different?

Well, you know, I couldn't agree with you more on how the last administration, the Biden administration fell short.

You know, they basically wanted to not talk about the issue, right?

They wanted to ignore it and just pretend it wasn't an issue and fully give it to Congress.

That clearly was a mistake because any of us who were in Congress and going home to our districts every weekend and every week, doing town halls, talking to folks, knew it was a problem, knew that people want a secure border.

And in my experience, where the vast majority of Americans are, is they want a secure border.

They actually want a system that works, that allows for lawful legal immigration.

They want the visa system to work better, but they also want compassion.

They want humanity at the border.

They want the ability to accept refugees who are properly vetted.

They want the ability for dreamers and our young folks who came here and have lived here and known nothing but this country to have permanent residency with a pathway to citizenship.

And people who actually own homes and are paying taxes and own businesses and want to have citizenship to also have a pathway to that as well.

That is where the vast majority of Americans are, right?

And they reject this idea of mass deportation of families and children and people who are peaceful in our communities.

They don't want that either.

So, you know, we're in this position where Americans are in a place that's vastly different from most of the political discussion that's happening in Washington.

And that's why we need, you know, a bipartisan solution, ultimately.

Do you think we're going to get one of those anytime soon?

I know that we did have.

the Senate version of the bill and Donald Trump personally didn't want it because he wanted to campaign on it and he was correct.

I don't know if he would have won without it, frankly.

Are you hopeful about it?

Do you feel like Democrats have taken enough control of the issue that we could actually come out and say, like, this is our plan.

Stick with us?

Yeah, not yet.

I mean, I'm pushing it.

Others are pushing it.

I think we need to be more honest with folks about what I just talked about, about the fact that, you know, most Americans do want a secure border, but they also want compassion and humanity.

And they want people to have due process, too, right?

That is just where people are.

And there's not enough talk about that.

And so long as Donald Trump is in the White House and Republicans control Congress, I'm not optimistic that anything rational and reasonable is going to move.

I'm just not.

I think what's going to have to happen is there's going to have to be a new iteration, a new administration, a new iteration of Congress for us to actually have the conversation that we need to have and strike that compromise.

And as you mentioned, there was that compromise last year that was heavily negotiated.

And like any compromise, which actually is something crazy called legislating, right?

There is this crazy thing called legislating, and it requires compromise.

It requires that no side gets everything they want.

So there were things in that deal that I didn't like, but there were many things that I did.

And that's just where we need to be.

Yeah.

I always

was frequently referring to the fact that James Langford was the principal negotiator on the Republican side who is no dove.

He's not a moderate.

No, I would love to have him on, but he does not fit the raging moderate moniker of the podcast at all.

And he still thought the deal was decent enough to do.

I want to try to connect a few strands.

So we're talking about immigration here and a lot of how Donald Trump has framed that is about nationalism and protecting America.

And you mentioned the Intel briefing about the strikes in Iran on the nuclear sites.

And I'd love to hear a bit about what you could share, but.

Can you discuss it in the context of the comments that Secretary Hagseth has been making that essentially it's un-American to be critical at all of the mission or to have any questions about the mission.

Yeah, let me start there.

You know, what's un-American is this idea that whenever there's military action, the only reasonable response is just support our troops and salute the flag and move out and not ask questions.

That's what's un-American, right?

We have civilian control of the military and we have elected officials in Congress that have a constitutional obligation to ask tough questions to make sure that our military is being used wisely.

You know, I went to war three times for our country.

I was a paratrooper.

I was an Army Ranger.

I deployed three times to Iraq and Afghanistan.

And we spent, as a nation, 20 years at war, we spent $3 trillion, over 6,000 American lives, a tremendous amount of American credibility down the drain because Congress stopped having a debate and asking the tough questions and taking votes to authorize military force.

And had we been forced to do that, and to be clear, 12 Congresses, both Republican and Democratic-controlled, now five different administrations, both Republican and Democrat, so both sides have done this, have used these blank checks provided by Congress after 9-11 to do endless military conflicts, engagements, and strikes, right?

And that's what you end up with.

You end up with 20 years of war, trillions of dollars are spent, and no real tough questions being asked.

So, no, I completely reject that notion.

We not only can, but must hold in high regard and appreciate the service of our troops.

And in this regard, you know, remarkable mission actually conducted by our troops in Iran.

But that's very different from saying, was this in our national interest?

What did we actually accomplish?

Was this a good use of taxpayer dollars?

And was this a constitutional violation once again, by cutting Congress, the people's house, and the people's representatives out of matters of war and peace?

And that is my concern.

And I believe undoubtedly it was, right?

I sit on the intelligence committee, I sit on the armed services committee, and there should be no intelligence provided to the president that also isn't provided to Congress, because it's Congress that builds the military, that decides how many planes and ships and soldiers we have, that funds it, and actually passes the laws that the president uses to carry out missions.

So we need the same information, and we're just not getting it.

Yeah, this is not going to be the administration of sharing.

their number one goal is to consolidate as much executive power as possible it was in project 2025 blah blah blah i've been saying this for a long time and we still lost the election but are you hopeful that we can move in that direction and if there's any light that you can shed on kind of where we stand or do you have concerns about further entanglement in the middle east as a result of the strikes that we have so far taken or do you feel like it's going to be calmer and the ceasefire is going to hold yeah i i always have concerns i mean we just get we have this tendency of getting pulled into middle east conflict that we just can't shake we just can't get out of right uh and again republicans have done it democrats have done it the amount of money and lives and credibility and time that we've spent on conflict in the middle east is is astonishing and there's actually bipartisan support around the notion of saying enough is enough, right?

And I actually view this more as, you know, the private that i used to be and the captain that i used to be actually started as an enlisted man i was i was private crow and then i ultimately became an officer was captain crow in the rangers and you know what i learned is that every time some politician or washington elite pounds their chest and usually they're you know some ivy league educated person that's never served in the military not always but usually they pound their chest they talk tough it's some working class kid like me from the middle of the country that's got to pick up a rifle or get into a plane or jump into a tank and actually do the dirty work and get it done.

And I've kind of had it with that, right?

And now that I'm a member of Congress and have a say and have a platform, that's who I'm speaking for.

You know, it's those young kids, those men and women that actually have to do the tough stuff that, you know, these chest-pounding politicians like to talk about to make themselves feel tough.

Well, you know, I'm speaking up and I'm standing up for those kids out there in Oklahoma and Nebraska and Wisconsin and Colorado that ultimately have to bear the burden.

Well, you're tapping into something that I feel like is a big threat or conversation topic within our party right now:

the Democratic Party has become predictable, has become very establishment-y, that we don't seem genuine.

We've lost the working class vote.

I live in New York City.

We just had an upset in the mayoral primary with Zoran Mondani trouncing Andrew Cuomo, who was an incredibly flawed candidate, but still was leading in all the polls.

But one,

how do you think that we can get more of you in Congress?

And then on top of that, also communicate to the rest of the country that you are in Congress and that this is what the party can look like.

Well, I'm here.

I'm talking.

I'm getting,

yeah.

No, you're doing your part.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you touched on something, Jessica.

I mean, first of all,

here's what Democrats need to do differently and shift, right?

A couple of things.

Number one is we have to stop being the party that defends government, right?

And that's different from defending civil servants and government services, right?

I defend lifetime civil servants.

You know, our government is full of just incredibly talented people who have given their life to their country and to their community that do great work.

And even they are frustrated, actually, by bureaucracy, by red tape, by their inability to do their job because it's become crushing, you know, to the point of paralyzing so much of this bureaucracy and big government process.

And Democrats are perceived as the defenders of that.

We defend big government that we're defending process that simply just doesn't work.

Yeah, it increasingly feels like everything you just described is something that the Republicans have been able to co-opt.

There are a lot of problems plaguing the party, but one of them seems to be a dearth of authenticity.

You seem like a pretty genuine article.

Can you talk about how you're perceiving that and what you think we can do about it?

Yeah,

I mean, it's certainly true, right?

I mean, first of all, I'm going to generalize here because I have a lot of friends and colleagues who are flipping seats and holding Republican-held seats that are doing this really well.

But the truth is in November, we lost 90% of American counties, right?

And you can't have a majority and you can't, more importantly, govern if that's what's happening.

So The bottom line for me is that, you know, authenticity matters and just being you, just saying the thing matters, right?

Instead of presenting this caricature or projecting this, you know, politician image of folks is that you just need to connect.

And part of that is showing up the places that are important to the things that are important, right?

Democrats think we're having policy discussions when everybody else just wants to know: are they seen?

Are they respected?

Are they heard?

Do you understand their life?

Right.

And writing off things that matter to communities, you know, history and tradition, you know, whether it's the Friday night football games or the fish fries or going to the parades, I grew up going to Fourth of July parades.

I grew up saluting the flag and getting a chill down my back and getting goosebumps, which I still do today, by the way, getting goosebumps every time the national anthem is played at an event.

And that's not to say that I look at our nation with rose-colored glasses.

That's not to say that I don't understand our difficult history and how we have failed to live up to our expectations and our quest for a more perfect union because we have in so many ways.

And I see that throughout the country.

But the promise of that and the quest for that being better matters.

And that's why I believe in patriotism.

And Democrats too often don't do that, right?

You don't show up to the NASCAR game.

You don't show up to the Army-Navy game.

I went to the Army-Navy game this last fall, which is one of the greatest rivalries in sports, right?

And it's, you know, our nation's military battling it out on the gridiron.

And, you know, President Biden didn't show up to that.

He's the commander in chief.

But, you know, who did show up?

Donald Trump.

And he got a standing ovation from a lot of people there.

And the Daytona 500 is another example, right?

Like this stuff matters to a lot of people.

It matters to me.

And if you don't show up, that's taken as a slight.

So we just got to show up.

We have to be real.

We have to be ourselves.

And we have to stop telling Americans why they should feel better than they do.

That's the other piece, is people just believe that the American dream is dead for them and out of reach.

A lot of Americans, most Americans, I think, believe that.

That the American dream, which to me, growing up means the ability to buy a home, to build equity and to retire with dignity, to

have quality health care and to have your children's life turn out better than yours and to have access to education for them, that is out of reach for most Americans now.

Simple fact.

And all too often we find Democrats saying, well, you should feel better than you really do, or here's why you shouldn't feel bad about that.

No, I mean, screw that.

People feel pretty bad about it.

And then they're frustrated as hell.

So why don't we actually engage in that conversation and then figure out how we can fix it?

Did you know that we were going to lose in November?

I thought it was 50-50.

I was afraid we were going to lose because I was paying attention.

Listen, I come from a conservative background and family, right?

Most of my family are Trump supporters.

Most of the people I grew up with are Trump supporters.

Grew up in the upper Midwest.

Spent the first 10 years of my life in a town of less than 15,000 people.

And then I spent a whole bunch of time in the fall traveling around rural America in some of the toughest districts in the country.

And I knew something was off.

If you're paying attention and if you're getting outside of liberal bubbles, it's not too hard to see that something is off.

We're going to take a really quick break.

Stay with us.

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Welcome back.

There were a lot of flags at our convention, but it seems that it did not do enough to affirm to people that we were a patriotic party or a party that was going to be able to provide the kind of opportunity that you're talking about.

And I think you're so right on the American dream.

You know, I work in polling.

I've been tracking this for a very long time and it's getting bleaker and bleaker.

And now that you have, you know, the age of when you're going to be able to buy a home now at 40, that's just absolutely unheard of.

Like when I talk to my mom about this, who's a, you know, a mid-boomer, right?

They're on their second home by then, right?

They've already had a starter home and they were able to move up the ladder.

I guess, how do you think this kind of patriotism, this kind of nationalism can become more a part of the discourse?

You know, this is airing on the 4th of July.

People will be out at those parades, feeling the same way that you do, the same way that I do, excited about this, understanding that we are part of the greatest democratic experiment in human history,

but that it is an experiment and it feels like it's teetering.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I grew up, I mean, kind of, I grew up kind of thinking that American democracy was inevitable.

I mean, why would it be any other way?

Right?

Like, this is the way it is, it's going to last forever, regardless of whether you are a Democrat or Republican.

You believed in the rule of law, you believed in the Constitution, like there were policy disagreements.

And I'm, I'm, again, I'm simplifying it because, you know, we've been through a civil war, we've been through a civil rights movement, we've been through a suffrage movement, like all these like massive battles and big things in our history, which is, you know, the story of America, the story of struggle between our highest ideals and our worst impulses.

That is the story of America, and that's constantly the tension.

But when I was growing up, kind of thought, oh, there's an inertia and momentum to this.

And I think the lesson of the last decade, roughly, so long as I've been involved in politics, because I didn't grow up around politics, I've been doing it for about eight years now, is that it's not inevitable.

And there's no norm or institution or momentum that will just save us and ensure that that it goes on forever.

What it actually is, is just people, Americans, men and women, standing up generation after generation and reearning it with sacrifice, whether that be the greatest generation during World War II, whether that be the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement, whether that's the suffragettes, you know, or the Civil War.

It always has to be re-earned.

And the reearning of that takes tremendous sacrifice by individuals, by people.

You know, we're in one of those moments again.

None of us asked to be in that moment, by the way, to be in one of those handful of moments where we have to preserve the union and move in the right direction.

But that's always the nature of leadership, too.

You never get to choose your moment, right?

That moment is thrust upon you, and your only choice and decision is to, you know, whether or not you will step up and how much you're willing to give.

What do you think about the idea of having a national service requirement?

I like that idea.

I don't know if we need to start with a requirement

because

forcing it is not necessarily in the spirit of service either.

But here's something I know.

Actually,

I am a member of the Bipartisan Veterans Caucus in Congress.

I actually was the chair of it last Congress.

We started it in 2018.

you know, roughly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats.

There's almost 40 of us now in the Bipartisan Veterans Caucus.

And we've made national service, not just military service, but national service, a core element of our work.

Because what we know is that when, you know, city kids get together with farm kids and, you know, white, black, Asian, Latino, straight, gay, people actually roll up their sleeves and build something, literally, work together, get dirty, get sweaty, you know, kind of suffer together, that foxhole mentality, that it breaks down barriers and it connects us.

And I think that has been a connecting tie for America is that people have worked together, fought together, and those have been the moments where we have done our greatest things.

And, you know, we were losing that.

And what's amazing is that here's some data that's actually really pretty fascinating.

There are about 20 times more young people in America who want to do national service than there are opportunities for them to do national service.

Wow.

Right?

So, for every slot in AmeriCorps, in Peace Corps, and Teach for America, in Civilian Conservation Corps, in the military, there are 19 other young Americans who want one of those positions and want to serve than there's room for.

So there's tremendous unmet need right now, right?

If we just vastly expanded the pipeline of opportunity, those people would serve our communities.

They would help rebuild

rural, impoverished areas.

They would help clean our forests and rebuild our national parks.

They would work together, build solidarity and community.

And there's a whole bunch of young folks who want to do it.

We just don't have the pipeline.

So we've been working hard to try to increase that pipeline.

Unfortunately, this administration is drastically cutting a lot of those programs, which

will be really bad for our country.

Yeah.

The cuts don't make a lot of sense in general, but especially when you're talking about programs like that, which I assume that there are plenty of young Republican kids that really want to go do Teach for America and these programs.

Like when I was graduating college, we had a good chunk of people that wanted to go and do that.

And a lot of them stayed in the system that way.

Then they became public school teachers wherever they had gone to teach.

We're talking about civilian service in general, but I do want to talk about veterans specifically.

So after you served, you went and got a law degree, went to work for veterans.

Can you talk about that experience and what you kind of think is the current state?

of the veteran community here in the country.

Yeah.

So I did.

I was a, you know, I was a paratrooper, army ranger, did my tours, then used veterans benefits to go to law school.

I was in private practice, but did a whole bunch of veterans pro bono work helping veterans and veterans organizations resettle.

And the reason I did that is because when I left the service, it was a tough transition, but it's tough for any.

combat veteran to transition, right?

Because you're going, I remember this time when I was starting law school and I was going through orientation, you know, and you go through orientation and you sit around in these little circles and chairs and you're like, hi, my name is Jason.

And like, I like pizza and

you give your favorite, you know, food.

And I was older.

Most of my

fellow students were coming right out of undergrad.

And I had just spent four years at war basically as a ranger.

And I'm like, hi,

my name is Jason and I've been an Army Ranger the last couple of years.

And no kidding, one of the students are like, Army Ranger, like.

Why does the Army have rangers?

Like, I thought only national parks had rangers.

And I'm like, different type of ranger.

Also cool, but wasn't wearing one of the hats.

That was my first moment.

I'm like, huh, the civilian-military divide is pretty wide in our country right now.

So that point being that that transition is tough and getting tougher because of the civilian-military divide.

And it's tough, right?

And

the VA system is not working for a lot of vets.

That's why we have, you know, almost 20 veterans a day taking their lives.

We have massive wait times.

There's a lot of suffering within the veterans community that I see with some of my friends.

And I struggled to get my own benefits, actually.

There was one point at which I wasn't getting paid.

I wasn't getting my benefits.

And I'm like, well, I think I'm going to have to drop out of school actually because I can't pay my rent and pay my tuition because I'm not.

getting my money.

And so when I finally did figure that out and get my benefits, I'm like, all right, this is not working.

So I'm going to help other vets do the same.

And that kind of started me off on the path that ultimately led me, frankly, to Congress because I realized that this was a political issue more than anything else.

It's a shame that it has to be that way.

I feel like there's so much lip service given to the community.

Like everyone knows that you're supposed to say the right thing about veterans, but so few people are actually doing the right thing.

Yeah.

I love hearing, though, that the Veterans Caucus is actually split and there must be Republicans that you have found a great way to work together with.

Yeah, definitely try.

By the way, one of the reasons there is a lot of, you know, free pie on Veterans Day and like, come in for your free breakfast at Denny's, which, you know, is all well and good.

But, you know, when we have a system that's fundamentally not serving folks the way it should be, that's the larger issue.

And

after I was finishing law school and applying for law jobs, do you know how I knew during an interview that I absolutely was not going to get the job?

No.

It's when they ended the interview by thanking

your service.

Yep.

They're like, thank you for your service.

I'm like, thank you.

Have a good day.

I'm not getting this job, am I?

I will never see you again.

Is that, I mean, this is a very trivial question, but is it annoying when people do that?

I think about it.

No, it's not, it's not annoying because it's coming from a good place.

It doesn't annoy me because it's coming from a good place.

People mean it well.

Because that military-civilian divide is so wide right now.

We haven't done a good job of equipping the civilian world with the tools necessary to do that, right?

To really ask the right questions and show an interest, either to do something, do an act of service, or to actually do something substantive to help a veteran, or instead of thanking you for your service, what I always recommend people do is ask a question.

Like, hey, why did you serve?

What did your service mean to you?

Like, what do you still carry right now from your your service?

Like, show an actual interest and ask a question and listen, because what that does is, A, it helps break down that divide and it helps teach you something, but it actually helps relieve the burden on the veteran of that service.

Because every veteran carries some burden from their time.

And often you carry it alone, silently, and it's heavy.

And there's that wall that people want to thank you for your service or give you the free pie, but it ends there.

They don't actually want to know the tough things that you had to do on their behalf.

They would rather not know.

And, you know, that's why we end up with 20-year wars that cost trillions of dollars because a very small number of people bear the burden and everybody else goes on with their lives.

So that has to end, right?

We as a society, if we're going to send people off to fight for us and bear that burden, everybody needs to bear it to some degree.

And that sometimes meets as simple as asking a question about what your service meant and what you still carry with you.

I love that.

That's an alternative.

And it also starts a conversation to go back to what we were talking about earlier, where you can show that you actually care about someone and that even if you don't understand, you're curious.

We always end by asking our guests, what's one thing that makes you rage and one thing that you think we should all calm down about?

I don't do rage well.

No.

I mean, I get angry and mad, but I find raging generally to be not productive because when you rage, it clouds your judgment.

Okay.

And

as a former combat leader, raging doesn't get you where you need to be.

Okay.

That's different from anger.

You can be angry, angry as hell.

And the thing that makes me more angry than anything else is when the strong take advantage of the weak.

When people will take advantage of the vulnerable.

I get,

I was going to say, I was going to use the F word.

It's okay.

You can.

If it's authentic, I'm into it.

I get really fired up.

All right.

So that's what makes me really angry

and what drives me.

And frankly, there's a lot of that happening.

Yeah.

So I'm pretty pissed a lot these days.

Yeah.

What do you think we should all calm down about?

Boy, that's the harder part of the question.

Can be.

What should we calm down about?

It could be like a sports thing.

I mean, you could do, I've heard a lot of stuff.

Okay.

It doesn't have to be a high-minded political opinion.

Yeah.

I think

what we need to do is we need to

talk about your friends, neighbors, family.

Like, stop viewing everybody as the enemy, right?

If they have an R or a D behind their name.

Let's calm down about that.

Because listen, Washington is not going to solve this, right?

And I'm not trying to.

pass the buck or shuck responsibility here.

Washington obviously has a really important piece to play in this.

But the bind that we find our country in right now, the vitriol and the partisanship, the fix is not going to come from Washington.

The fix to that is going to come from America, from rotary clubs, from community organizations, from neighborhood block parties, from everyone taking a step back and being, all right, let's reconnect and stop viewing each other as the enemy.

And let's calm down about that.

I love it.

Thank you so much for your time.

I won't say thank you for your service, but thank you for talking to me about your service and how we can have a more service-oriented American culture, which I think would be a net positive for all of us.

I'm deeply appreciative that you stopped by.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me, Jessica.

I enjoyed it.